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50 > 1: Changing Washington from the Outside

Ask your neighbors and co-workers a simple question: "What are the wealthiest counties in America?" Here are the answers I got:

“Is Manhattan a county? That has to be one of the richest.”

“Which county has Beverly Hills?”

“San Francisco County has to be up there. Silicon Valley too.”

Wrong on all counts. According to a U.S. Census Bureau report released last week, the county with the highest median income is Loudoun County, Va. Number two is Falls Church City, Va.; followed by Fairfax County, Va. (#4); Howard County, Md. (#6); Arlington County, Va. (#7); and Prince William County, Va. (#10). Anyone else notice a pattern here?

The first county on the list not adjacent to the Beltway is Los Alamos County, N.M., home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory where the biggest employer is — you guessed it — Washington, D.C.

As the endless talk of “economic recovery" seems more like wishful thinking than analysis, isn't it odd that the only region starting its fifth straight year of a booming economy is home to our political elite?

This is doubly odd since Washington doesn’t invent smartphones or build cars or record music — mostly they invent rules and build bureaucracies and record regulations. The federal government’s primary industry is siphoning money from 50 far-flung states and reallocating it to preferred interest groups (after taking an ample service charge, of course).

As a result, the states increasingly look like colonies and Washington, D.C. an unresponsive imperial capital. Since our Founding Fathers were all-too-familiar with that dynamic, they drafted a Constitution to protect such aristocratic excesses.

Not only did they create a balance of power within the federal government, they created a balance of power from without. Just as the executive, legislative and judicial branches keep each other in check, the states were given the power to hold Washington in check.

Federalism allows the states to make many if not most of their own rules. The federal government protects essential civil rights, but if Vermont wants to slap a sin tax on non-vegan hacky sacks, go for it. If Arizona wants to toss half their red tape in a wood chipper, great. Then Americans and companies can vote with their feet for the system they like best.

Of course, politicians from both parties are slow to give up power willingly. Year after year, federal spending has shot up independent of the R or D after a president’s name. Thankfully, the Constitution was designed to trump their insatiable thirst for more.

Brave governors and attorneys general have defended state powers in court — and won. Twenty-five states have refused to create Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges despite ominous warnings from Washington.

The states already have the power; they just need to use it.

President Barack Obama famously stated that after four years in office he learned that "you can't change Washington from the inside." I agree completely with President Obama on that point. Now it is up to the governors, legislatures and citizens of all 50 states to prove him right.

Currently there are 73 federal agencies that have full-time armed officers with arresting authority. According to a 2008 report by the Department of Justice, there were 120,000 full-time law enforcement officers working for federal agencies and 24 different federal agencies employed at least 250 full-time officers. Federal agencies with at least 250 full-time officers included the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Mint, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Veterans Health Administration.

We have too long abrogated our duty to enforce the separation of powers required by our Constitution. We have overseen and sanctioned the growth of an administrative system that concentrates the power to make laws and the power to enforce them in the hands of a vast and unaccountable administrative apparatus that finds no comfortable home in our constitutional structure. The end result may be trains that run on time (although I doubt it), but the cost is to our Constitution and the individual liberty it protects. – Justice Clarence Thomas from his concurring opinion in Dep’t of Transportation v. Ass’n of American Railroads

The "CRomnibus" government funding bill passed handily last weekend, but not before Senators Lee and Cruz had their say. In a controversial move, the two senators managed to put their colleagues on record voting for or against funding President Obama's latest unconstitutional executive power grab. Many Republican senators, however, protest too much, claiming that Lee and Cruz may have allowed the Democrats to pass a number of executive nominees because of their insistence upon making their point.

The Saturday Night Live used its cold open last weekend to skewer the way President Barack Obama has redefined the lawmaking process through an unprecedented use executive orders and actions to get around Congress, the most recent example of which is the administration deferring action against some 5 million undocumented immigrants.

As one of our over 6.6 million FreedomWorks activists nationwide, I urge you to contact your senators and ask them to vote NO on S.J. Res. 19, a proposed Constitutional amendment that would enshrine into law the government’s ability to restrict political free speech. Sponsored by Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and co-sponsored by 48 of his colleagues, this amendment would take the unprecedented step of amending Americans’ First Amendment rights.

Covering one decision from Circuits 6 through 11, this article is Part 2 of a collection of court cases that you should know about. Court activism throughout the country affects you and your rights so take a glance at the cases below to see the precedents being established that are threatening your civil liberties.

FreedomWorks has signed onto the following coalition letter, authored by Taxpayers' Protection Alliance, opposing a bill that would effectively ban online gambling at the federal level. A copy of the letter as sent to the Hill can be found attached below.